Limyaael

kellicat @ 03:35 am: I really like this rant. It's a fine balance between having a protagonist make too few mistakes or too many mistakes if you want your protagonist to stay alive. Too few makes them into a Mary Sue and too many can doom the protagonist to a nasty death. If protagonists are supposed to die for their stupidity, that's one thing, but an ending where the protagonist survives requires them to do something right.

All of the suggestions above are good and I think that combining them would be even more interesting. For example, Seranne witholds a piece of important information from Taria because Taria's a notorious gossip and Seranne doesn't want that piece of information spread aroundthe marketplace. Then Taria makes a huge mistake that endangers them both because Seranne didn't tell her what she needed to know. That could be a combination of #1 and #3, epsecially if Taria's tendency to gossip too much and Seranne's reticence had been established earlier in the narrative.

2 and 4 could also make an explosive combination since different people will different views on what to do in a completely new situation. I'm definitely planning to use them both in the novel I'm working on right now. The result should be interesting.